Just Nano
by Purplatious
Summary: It has been seven hundred years since the beginning of the Shinonome war. Everyone but the professor herself had a feeling it would happen sooner or later, and then it did. The robots started it, and now only one robot can stop it. Unfortunately for humanity, it seems that robot has lost its memory. But that doesn't mean it's lost everything.
1. Chapter 1

Off the cliff stood Mt. Hakase in all its glory, a tall, proud monument of ages past. Like a lion announcing its greatness to the world, it roared, roared with wind and thunder, its beastly mane of trees and broken-down bots quaking and trembling under the might of its very name. Pico had once feared the thunder, but these days it calmed her. In these days, bad weather was the law, and thunder was like a guardian demon, a watchdog: that one ill-tempered friend who you could always count on to be angry as all hell. It felt nice to be able to count on a few things, even if they weren't necessarily nice things.

"Hey, Peekhole. Spare a few bullets? I'm clean out." Her acquaintance, Buzz. Fourth-generation make, like herself, so he had that same sleek, curved sort of build to him. She always wondered how he wound up with that rusty shade of orange for coating—not to say it didn't suit him well—but in the interest of polite conversation she never asked.

"Oh, um, yes, of course." She unscrewed her gun cap and emptied out half her ammunition. Buzz was always out of bullets, but, again in the interest of polite conversation, she never mentioned it.

Buzz took the bullets over his head and drank them in like a bottle of beer. Pico could hear them clink-clank down into his arm, and it made her feel kind of gross inside. "Owe ya one." He always said that, and she was starting to wonder when she would get to collect on this supposed debt of "ones" that he owed her. This was another of the things she didn't mention in the interest of good manners. Pico liked to think of herself as the sociable sort, but in all honesty she didn't talk much. The moment never seemed opportune.

Buzz slapped her on the back. "No need to be a stranger, we're all fighting the same war here." He cocked his gun and rattled his lazy way back to the mess hall. "Quit standin' around on the front line," he called back. "You'll get yourself shot clean down."

"Oh, um, sorry." Pico stepped back a bit from the cliff, a cursory measure to be sure. She didn't much care. If she was to be shot down one day she'd much rather it be earlier than later. At least if she were taken today she knew no one would really miss her. The only community she'd ever known was the army, and they had all the compassion of kidney stones. And for the most part, they were about as pleasant to pass along.

Seven hundred years, she thought to herself, gazing out over the mountain's barren foothills and shaking her head. The majority of these droids had been fighting the Shinonome war for over seven hundred years, and not a grain of wisdom had come of it all. It was always, "make 'em work, and if they don't work, they're broken, and if they're broken, throw 'em away." The thought made her sick to her core processor.

Pico turned away from the cliff and wandered back inside, over toward a row of empty docking stations at the bar, to sit down for awhile. The bar was always empty. Because they kept firing all the drunks, she reminded herself. It was a stupid rule, and it made her wonder why they had a bar in the first place if no one was allowed to drink at it. If they wanted to weed out the subversives, she thought, there were easier and more precise ways to do it.

On the counter of the bar was a centuries-old newspaper, stained with oil and gasoline from some sloppy fellow who'd probably had too much to drink. It was a wonder the poor thing survived—the newspaper, that is. There was a picture of a little old lady—notably a human one, probably Asian—in handcuffs, being coerced at gunpoint down a dark hallway by a man in a brown suit-jacket, likely a general of the human army. The headline read, in ancient Japanese, "Prof. Shinonome receives dishonorable discharge. Human race devastated."

Pico sighed and pushed the newspaper aside to lay down her elbow and rest her head in her claw. She wasn't much fonder of humans than the next bot, but she had to admit they ran things relatively well. When a human was dismissed from its army, they called it a "discharge." Sure, it may not have been a friendly process, but even so, the human had the pleasure of going home and seeing its family again. Not so for robots, who had no family to return to.

She could hear the metallic screams from the other room, and the crackling of the flame, and the flurry of hammers like heavy rain. No, not so for robots. A robot which couldn't serve its race wasn't "discharged." It was "fired," and when they said "fired," they meant it literally. Into the fire with the defectives, into the fire to melt them down into more metal, to sculpt more innocent bots and pull _them_ into this mess, too. And when _they_ wouldn't fight either, melt them down all the same, and keep trying 'til you found someone with a heart as bitter and callous as your own. Pico plugged up her microphones in hopes of silencing the echoes in her head.

After about a minute, the noise stopped. The hammers lifted, the fire doused, and thus marked the end of what was, for some poor mechanically gifted models, literally the daily grind. Pico gasped in relief. She had to consider sometimes, what did she know about right from wrong? Only a fifth-year, after all. In a crowd like this, she was nothing special. There were hundreds others like her. She was a pretty blue color, but that was just about the only peculiarity she had going for her.

Just a bright blue bot, she thought to herself. The thought comforted her. Just a bright blue bot in a bleak bot-eat-bot world. Her elbow slid across the table, and her head collapsed in the musty embrace of the worn newspaper, and she started to drift off to sleep. She almost smiled.


	2. Chapter 2

"All I did," hissed the old woman on the screen, "was imagine a world where man and machine could live and laugh together in harmony."

"Harmony. You call this harmony." The man in the suit yanked her handcuffs forward. "Very funny."

"Sir, I began my career at _four years old_. Suffice to say I took these things for granted. How was I supposed to know it would turn out like this?"

"You started a world war, Professor Shinonome, whether you knew it or not. Millions are dead because of your inventions. So, you see, it really doesn't matter how brilliant a little girl you think you were."

"Isn't that all we ever do here? Use inventions to kill? Look at yourself. Even now, you're exploiting the invention of social hierarchy to kill a defenseless old—"

"The military fights wars, Shinonome, but we don't start them." The man's face was seething with rage now. "We only do what's necessary for the public good. And today, it's necessary that you depart from—that you _die_ as soon as possible." The old woman fell silent. "I'm sorry," conceded the man. "But it's the only way."

The screen suddenly froze. Java was disjointed for a moment, but shook off the shock and gathered his bearings. He heard a familiar self-satisfied voice behind him: "Yes, yes, it's all so fascinating, isn't it? Very interesting, an absolutely enthralling glimpse into history."

"Sir, Colonel Razor, sir." Java quietly stood up and saluted.

Colonel Razor waved his remote at the screen. "I didn't call you here for a movie marathon, Mr. Eight-Zero-Six." The Colonel always called his subordinates by their model numbers. Java supposed it was one of the many formal old-timey mannerisms the Colonel kept to make himself look more official, and really couldn't have less to do with whoever bore the brunt of it. Nevertheless, Java could never help but be somewhat offended whenever he heard that complacent call of "Eight-Zero-Six." It was like a wrenching reminder of what he really was. A number. Just a part of the system, an abstract concept to be deployed and disposed of at will.

Colonel Razor looked at Java as if he had a microbot on his face. He sighed. "You're hopeless." The Colonel said that kind of thing a lot. He rewinded the tape and sat down next to Java. "See for yourself, soldier." Java shifted away a bit.

"All I did," hissed the old woman again, "was imagine a world where man and machine could live and laugh together in harmony." The frame froze.

"Get it? Got it? Good." The Colonel clanked his gun in his claw like cut-print-wrap. "Now, bring her to me."

Java stared. "Sir." He tried his hardest not to sound as if he were speaking to a newbuilt. "Professor Shinonome has been dead for hundreds of years."

"Not the old lady, you imbecile." Colonel Razor slapped Java in the core with the back of his claw. Java knew the motion from his mandatory human culture studies. It was a gesture that had been used in an ancient Japanese comedy routine known as "manzai" to denote exasperation, especially on the part of the "tsukkomi," a level-headed character, in response to the "boke," a ridiculous character. He wasn't sure whether he was supposed to laugh or apologize. The only ridiculous character he could see in the room was Colonel Razor.

Besides which, the old lady was the only "her" Java had seen in the video at all. "Sir, I beg your pardon—"

"Well, you may not have it." The Colonel repeated the slapping gesture. This time it hurt. He sighed. "Feh. You're _hopeless_." Java was starting to get sick of his job. Colonel Razor rewound the tape again.

"All I did," hissed the old woman again, but she stopped and started to twitch. Colonel Razor was repeatedly skipping over the section. "All I—All I did," she repeated, "was imagine a—imagine a world—was imagine a world…" In time with the skips, there was a gray blob dancing in the background, behind a wall. "All I did—a world where man and machine could—" The frame froze.

"Look there, boy." Colonel Razor pointed where the gray blob had been.

Java was in awe. "M—My apologies, sir." At some point in the beginning of the video, the blob had emerged from behind the wall and fully into the backdrop, revealing itself to be none other than a young girl, probably high school age. She was a bit blurry from so far away, but Java could make out that she had dark hair, a skirt, and a baby blue sweatshirt jacket.

"Apologies are a waste of time," spat the Colonel. "Keep watching."

"—could live and laugh together in harmony," finished the old woman. Colonel Razor paused the video again. The high school girl had come the rest of the way out from behind the wall.

"You're one of our best bots, Eight-Oh-Six. I thought you of all people would have picked up on this, but apparently I have to break it down for you." Java hung his head in shame. "See here? See the propeller on her back?"

Java peeked his head up out of his guilty stupor to look. "Sir, I see it clear as day, sir." Truthfully, it looked more like a windup key than a propeller, but it didn't seem his place to say so.

"And just what do you think that means, soldier?" Colonel Razor loudly demanded. His voice drove Java down into the corner of his seat.

Java shivered. "Th—Th—That she's one of us, sir. I—I think." Of course, he knew it was the right answer—though admittedly it was a bit hard to tell, since her coating so closely mimicked a human skin—but he also knew that when the Colonel got like this, one wrong move could get a poor bot fired. And when it came to people like the Colonel, "wrong" didn't just mean incorrect.

Colonel Razor cleared his throat. "Yes, yes, correct, well done and all that." He rewinded the video, let it play again, and paused it at the same spot. "There. That frame. Did you see the way she walked in?" The girl had walked into view in a curled, self-conscious posture, with her hands making a futile attempt to cover the key in her back, as though she were ashamed of it.

Java whirred and clicked as he tried to understand. "Sir, is this… uh, significant… in some way?" Colonel Razor slapped him in the core again. Java doubled over.

"Eight-Oh-Six, I _swear_. Would you _please_ just take this seriously for two ticks?" Java was probably taking it more seriously than the Colonel was. Of course, he was only guessing at that. One never knew with the Colonel.

"Idiot!" continued Colonel Razor. "Of course it's significant. Who do we know who walks like that?" Java thought. He had never met anyone of the sort. He had certainly never met anyone with a human skin and a windup key sticking out of her back. The girl must have been a first-generation make, or even older.

Colonel Razor threw his arms up in the air. "Ugh, I give in." He stood up from the couch and started toward the door. "Just bring me the girl," he called behind him. "Figure it out yourself. I'll be in my office, trying to recover from any _processor damage_ I may have suffered from having to listen to your _stupid_—_Ugh_!" He kicked a tin can into the ceiling on his way out. Java had hardly said anything throughout the exchange, much less anything quite too stupid. He huffed and adjusted his posture in his seat. He turned off the television and sat for a moment in contemplation. He supposed he had a job to do.


End file.
